Backwater Tide

by Steven Becker

  “Do you have any paperwork or correspondence with the state?” I asked, as I scanned the shelves. They didn’t hold any actual artifacts, but there were plenty of pictures and books. Every second or third spot had something missing, which I guessed was in the boxes on the floor. “He find all these?”

  She nodded. Before she answered about the paperwork, Justine called out.

  “Hey, there’s someone in the backyard by the shed.”

  Maria followed me to the office. Justine stood in front of a pair of french doors that led to a small patio and walkway. At the end of the walkway was a detached garage. A man was hunched over by the door—Jim DeWitt.

  Maria was through the patio door before I could stop her. Not knowing DeWitt’s intentions, and assuming from her actions that he was not invited, I pulled my weapon and followed her.

  “What are you doing? I asked you to stay out of there.” Maria screamed at him.

  He turned and quickly put something in his pocket, then held out his empty hands. “Just looking to recover what belongs to the State of Florida.”

  “He paid you twice over,” Maria yelled. “I told you we would reconcile all of that in due time.”

  DeWitt saw me standing behind her. He appeared to be no threat and I put the gun away.

  “Agent Hunter. Perhaps as a federal agent, you can tell Ms. Gross here that the state gets paid first.”

  “I would think a probate judge would decide that.”

  “An inventory would be suitable for now,” DeWitt said.

  Something was going on between the two of them and I had the feeling I was being asked to referee.

  She gave him a nasty look. “There are things in process in there that aren’t to be disturbed.” She turned to me. “I’ll get the key.”

  A minute later we were standing in front of the door. DeWitt, happy that he was apparently getting what he wanted, gave Maria enough space that she couldn’t reach him. We were all curious in our own ways about what was inside and when Maria opened the door, we all jumped back as one.

  Fifteen

  For the second time in almost as many days, I smelled death before I saw it. We jumped back in order of our experience: Justine was hardly affected; I gagged, but tried to remain stoic and held my ground; DeWitt took several steps back; and Maria screamed.

  Justine gave me a look that told me to get rid of her, and I escorted her back to the house. When I returned, DeWitt seemed glued to his spot. I didn’t want him around Maria or otherwise in the way and figured that was good enough for now.

  “I have to call Miami-Dade,” Justine said, pulling her phone from her pocket.

  There was no choice. Gross was mine, but Coral Gables was not in my jurisdiction. “Can you at least call Grace?” I would have to work closely with whomever the case was assigned to; at least she was an ally. Justine stood pensive for a second, as if I had somehow insulted her, and considered my request. There was some kind of bad blood between the two women and if I was going to stay sane, I needed to find out what it was. Though both were professional, but just under the surface, something always seemed to be percolating between them,.

  “I have to call dispatch. There’re procedures.”

  “What if I call?” I wasn’t burdened by the massive rules and regulations of the county—only Martinez. That wasn’t always better, but in this case, he’d be happy enough I had called anyone besides him.

  “Suit yourself, but if she doesn’t answer…”

  “Okay.” I stepped to the side and found Grace’s number in my contact list. It wasn’t like the success of my search for Gross’s killer was on the line whether she answered or not, but it would be affected.

  “Agent Hunter.”

  I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. “You working?”

  “You know it. ”

  From what I had seen of the department, she had one of the better work ethics, though I still didn’t know why she had not been returning my calls the last two days. “Got a body in the Gables.”

  “Related to your case?”

  “Found it in the garage at Gross’s house. Justine is going in to have a look.”

  “Tell her to wait and give me an address and I’ll head over.” She disconnected, and I texted her the location.

  I failed to relay the message and watched Justine put on gloves and remove a large mag light from one of her boxes. She handed me a pair of disposable booties, which we both put over our shoes before entering. My case or not, I had no intention of waiting for Miami-Dade to have a look at what was inside.

  Together we crossed the threshold. Justine flicked on the light switch and suddenly the dark garage was transformed into a laboratory from a Breaking Bad episode. Stainless steel tables sat on an epoxy-coated floor. The drywall was covered with a plastic-looking finish and the lighting was about twice what you would expect from a garage.

  The next thing I saw was a pair of very expensive shoes. Standing back to allow Justine to do her thing, I followed in her footsteps. My eyes moved from the body to the shiny objects soaking in bins on one of the tables. There seemed to be a progression the closer I got to the body. The contents of the closest bin were black concretions similar to the chunk we had found aboard Gross’s boat. As I moved closer to the body, I could see the concretions were gone, revealing artifacts in their natural state. The last bin was overturned. Shiny silver objects, mixed in with a good deal of blood, were scattered on the floor. Even my uneducated eye could tell these were not from Spain’s glory days. These looked new, but not twentieth-century new; maybe from the eighteen hundreds. Justine cleared her throat and brought my attention back to the body. Looking up from the shoes, I scanned him until, moving around a large container, I saw the head wound that had killed the man. The blow had been to the back of the skull, as if he’d been approached from behind. Moving to the side I saw the face was intact. There was no doubt we had found Morehead.

  Justine tossed me a pair of gloves. One landed in my hand, the other dropped to the ground. I leaned over to pick it up and glanced back through the doorway. DeWitt had disappeared. I hoped he hadn’t gone in to confront Maria.

  “DeWitt is gone. I’m going to have a look around.”

  “I got this,” Justine replied.

  I knew her well enough to not take her abruptness personally. Of all the techs I had seen since coming here, she was the most thorough and part of that was her focus when she worked alone.

  With my distrust for the state inspector pegged into the red zone on my alert scale, I crossed the path to the house. Knocking on the doorjamb, I entered through the kitchen door. “Maria,” I called out. There was no answer, and I waited several seconds before moving into the kitchen. Louder this time, I called her name again. When I received no answer I drew my weapon and started searching the house. From my view out the living room window, I could see the Jeep was gone.

  Moving back through the rooms I retraced my steps, hoping not to disturb any evidence. I left the house went back to the garage. “Maria’s gone, too.”

  Justine appeared in the doorway holding a wallet. “I think we found your attorney.”

  We were on the walkway outside the garage and both turned to the street when we heard a car pull up. Coming in a little too hot, its passenger side wheel slammed into the curb before the driver straightened it out.

  “That was quick,” Justine said.

  Grace got out of the passenger seat and brushed herself off. She said something to the driver that I couldn’t make out and walked over to us without waiting for her partner.

  John Traynor, or JT as he preferred, stepped out of the driver’s side and slammed the door like the equipment and not the operator had caused the car to hit the curb. He went around and kicked the wheel before joining us.

  Grace had bad partner karma. Traynor’s predecessor had been a piece of work as well. Abrasive, sarcastic, and lazy, he was a perfect fit for the department, and had even been promoted for it.

  “Yo
u need to wait until we establish a perimeter and the coroner gets here,” Grace said to Justine. “You of all people know the procedure.”

  Justine stood with the wallet in her hand. Her jaw dropped and a look of indecision covered her face. I could see the gears turning in her head, having the inner debate about whether to confront Grace. Although she was my wife, I had no idea what the department protocol was, and feeling helpless and guilty for not being able to come to her aid, I stepped back and let her decide how to handle this.

  To make matters worse, Traynor stepped between the women and reached for the wallet. His courage surprised me, but standing less than five-six, he was able to move in under the taller women’s gazes.

  “Step in some more shit, Hunter?” he asked.

  “John. Good to see you too.” There was no way I was giving him the satisfaction of calling him by the initials he preferred. Even his last name was too cool for the detective.

  “We’ll need your statement,” he said.

  I decided with the air buzzing with estrogen from Justine and Grace that it wouldn’t be a good idea to add testosterone to the mix. “We may have a missing suspect as well.” They all turned to me.

  “Gross’s daughter Maria was here when I arrived. Just after Justine arrived to process his office, we saw a man trying to break into the garage. That’s how we found the body.” The next part was hard to say. “He disappeared in the confusion and when I checked the house Maria was gone as well.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t stomach all this?” Grace said.

  “Or she knew what was in there.” Maybe Maria had put on a carefully crafted facade of the grieving daughter; it could all too easily be an act.

  “Okay. Let me have their details and I’ll call in a BOLO for both of them,” Grace said.

  I gave her the names and descriptions and we waited while she radioed the station. “This whole property is a crime scene,” she said to Traynor. “Tape it all off and start a log of who goes in and out.”

  Her orders had the same effect as a slap in the face, but he was the junior officer and went to the car, opened the trunk, and took out a jumbo-sized roll of crime scene tape.

  Justine and I moved to stand under a shade tree outside the perimeter of the crime scene Traynor had established himself inside, waiting with a clipboard to log in anyone who entered.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked Justine.

  “They’re just following protocol.”

  “I mean between the two of you.”

  “Nothing.”

  There are only two options when a woman says “nothing.” I chose the safer one and didn’t pry. She understood the layers of the Miami-Dade bureaucracy better than I did. “What’s Traynor’s deal?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I think he resents being partnered with Grace.”

  I wondered if it shouldn’t be the other way around. “Any dirt on him?”

  Grace came towards us. She must have heard the last part of our exchange. “He’s just brash and arrogant; fits right in here.” She paused. “Hey, sorry about not returning your calls. Every time it rings, he’s breathing down my back like it’s his business. We’ve had a busy few days.”

  The brakes squealing on an approaching van cut short our conversation and we both turned to the sound. The medical examiner’s van came barreling down the street with Sid hunched over at the wheel. It screeched to a stop only inches from the cruiser that Grace and Traynor had arrived in. We both went toward the van to help.

  “You need to go back to fishing, Hunter. You didn’t catch nearly this many when you were on the water,” Sid said as he climbed out of the van and stretched his back.

  My reputation as a shit magnet was intact. “Wish I could,” I told him and helped him unload a gurney.

  “I guess if you stopped finding bodies, my girl here would get bored with you. What do we have here?” he asked.

  “One of Gross’s backers. I had a quick look before Herrera and her new boy toy tossed me out. Looks like he was hit in the back of the head.”

  “Let’s go have a look, shall we?” He put his arm around Justine’s shoulders and lifted the yellow tape. Traynor stuck a clipboard in Sid’s face, which he calmly pushed away. Several other official cars pulled up and the scene was soon crawling with officers. Most ignored me and I realized there was nothing else I could do here.

  Heading back to the truck, I texted Justine that I was going to try and find Maria and DeWitt. I had no problem leaving the deceased to Grace and Traynor; the case was going to be solved by finding the living.

  My phone revealed several messages from Slipstream. Apparently he’d finished breakfast and was ready for action. In truth I guessed he wanted me more for the pills than anything, but he knew these guys and how they rolled. I texted him back that I was on my way and headed to where I had dropped him off.

  Pacing the sidewalk in his walking boot, he seemed anxious when I pulled up. “Where have you been?” he asked between bites of his cigar.

  There was no point in withholding anything from him and hopefully letting him tag along with me would not only help my investigation, but now that Morehead had been found dead, keep him alive. He looked at me with his bloodshot eyes. I caved in and fished his pills out of my pocket, opened the bottle, and handed him one. In less than a second it was gone.

  “We have to find DeWitt.”

  “Now that’s a pair for you.”

  “They know each other?”

  “Gross wouldn’t deal with DeWitt. Maria handled him, if you know what I mean.” He gave me a Groucho Marx nod with his cigar.

  “What about Gross’s sister?” Of the cast of characters still living, she was unaccounted for as well. “She seemed a little bitter when I met her.”

  “Bitter ain’t half of her. That be one entitled bitch. Harmless, though.” He spat out a piece of the cigar. “She makes her living by getting married, not widowed. A string of dead husbands is bad for business.”

  “If you were DeWitt, where would you go?”

  “Pawn shop most likely.”

  I got his meaning, but he didn't know that DeWitt hadn’t gotten inside the garage. I moved on the Maria. “The only car there was a red Jeep.”

  “That’d be Maria’s ride. DeWitt has a state car, you know, white SUV. Wonder how he got there.”

  He was smarter than he looked. “I didn’t see it near the house.” I was confident my federal employee radar would have spotted it.

  “Sneaky bastard, that one.”

  DeWitt was involved in this. I wasn’t sure if he was protecting the state’s interest or lining his pockets—maybe both, but I knew I had to find him.

  Sixteen

  If I had learned anything from Martinez, it was that every government asset was tracked. With Slipstream under the influence of the pill I had given him and snoring quietly in the passenger seat, this was my best opportunity to find DeWitt. I glanced over at my new partner, wondering if I should rescue the cigar that was held in place by a small pool of saliva on his bottom lip. That would probably be the easiest decision of the day. I left it there and turned my attention to finding DeWitt and Maria.

  The BOLO had been out for over an hour now; checking in with Grace told me there’d been no responses. Martinez might not know about the BOLO, but there was no point hiding it from him. He might also be happy to know that Miami-Dade was now involved, which would ease his budget woes and mitigate the fallout if I failed.

  Mariposa answered, and after a few minutes of small talk and the promise of another dinner she connected me to the boss. I was thinking about her husband’s guest-only Appleton 21 rum when Martinez picked up.

  “Well, this is a surprise. Special Agent Hunter calling me. To what do I owe the honor?”

  From his sarcasm, I guessed that Susan McLeash was sitting there. “Jim DeWitt; he’s an underwater archeologist working for the state.”

  “What about him?”

  “He disappeared from a crime scene. Also
, we’ve got another body. We found Morehead in Gross’s garage.”

  “I heard there was a BOLO out for DeWitt. What does this have to do with the park?”

  This was where it was going to get tricky. In his world, favors were a kind of bureaucratic currency and he would be loath to spend any capital if Miami-Dade could get the same result. “DeWitt is a person of interest in Gross’s murder.”

  “That accusation better have some substance behind it.”

  Along with granting favors, protecting each other was also in the bureaucrats’ manual. The ice was getting thinner with Martinez looking after his brethren. “It’s complicated, but I believe he may be in cahoots with the family.”

  “Maybe we should be having this conversation face to face. I want to be sure you can read my lips when I tell you to back off.”

  I was being summoned and all I could hope for was that I could talk him into helping in person. Susan McLeash, as usual, might be the key. Although she was often forced on me and was a wild card in any situation, I had finally figured out what her skillset was. Even though it was dangerous, I’d had some success using her. “Okay, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” I paused, looking over at Slipstream. “I also have a confidential informant that I’m bringing in.”

  The line went dead and I pulled out of the parking lot. Traffic was starting to pick up as the early exodus from Miami had begun. Slipstream was jolted awake by a bone-jarring pothole, but quickly fell back to sleep. I couldn’t help but look over at him. The cigar had survived and I started to make a bet with myself about what it would take to actually jar it loose. While I navigated my way to the turnpike, I tried to think of the best way to use my new secret weapon. If two negatives could equal a positive in math, teaming him up with Susan McLeash might be an option worth pursuing.

  After pulling into an open space behind the headquarters building, I poked him in the ribs. The cigar jiggled and I thought for a brief second he was going to lose it, but he woke up and saved it.